As a child, Héctor Carvajal went to school “with clean feet”, without shoes. Colombia’s most powerful lawyer opens the door of his office this afternoon with black loafers swinging on the wooden floor. Life was generous with him. At 64, it has placed him in a privileged position involving the payment of some dues: Carvajal is a friend of the President. “More people die of envy than of cancer in this country,” he says as soon as he sits behind his desk and offers the visitor a drink. Next to the door is a display case full of bottles, half-eaten by people who have sat on this chair, as Gustavo Petro has done on many occasions. The rumor that accompanies Carvajal’s name is that he will nominate him as the nation’s next attorney general, one of the most important positions in the country.
Ever since it first circulated, he has felt the burden of the union: “All the lawyers are looking for me under the table to see what they can find for me.” Carvajal made his presence felt when it was revealed he was behind the three meetings held so far by Petro and Álvaro Uribe, two political enemies who have become close lately. The first took place in the same office, decorated with a drawing of Botero and pictures of hunting expeditions in the English countryside. The second, in the Casa de Nariño, the President’s residence. And the third, at Carvajal’s own home, where a young cook served dinner to all present.
Petro and Carvajal talk on the phone almost every day. He describes it as a friendship based on “absolute respect”. He gives his opinions on subjects that he may know from his legal experience, but assures that he never interferes in the work in charge of ministers or public bodies. He’s an expert on electoral processes, and that’s where he met the president in 2012. He advised him when prosecutors fired him as mayor of Bogotá over a garbage disposal issue — the Council of State overturned the verdict in 2017 —. This developed into a friendship that has lasted to this day.
Lawyer Carvajal sits in his office at the desk of VANNESSA JIMENEZ
He met former President Uribe indirectly through his sons Tomás and Jerónimo. The brothers had sold a piece of land that later became the free zone, where the bonded warehouses are located. Someone denounced them because they understood they had used their influence to change the use of the property and sold it for a lot more money than they bought it. If it had prospered, they would have had to demolish everything that was built. Carvajal took over the case and got the Council of State to acquit her. Uribe congratulated him on relieving his family. Over the years, the lawyer called him to say that Petro wanted to speak to him.
This contact made him very well known, which he never intended. Until then it had been handled in the anonymity of the court corridors. He works as a co-juez – deputy judge – in the Council of State and in the Trial Division of the Supreme Court. Several golf trophies rest in a display case. He has a handicap between 20 and 25, the average for an amateur. By playing this sport, he says he meets a lot of people and does a lot of business. “There’s a lot of camaraderie. If you’re fair in the game, you’re fair in life,” he adds.
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However, his life began far away from the Greens. His mother moved to Bogotá from Tolima, a widow with six children including Carvajal. The father had died from an accidental infection with cat poison. He studied in public schools where he went barefoot until they bought him some in his senior year of elementary school. Things improved at home when his brothers returned from military service and went to work. He started out as a waiter and bartender when he was 12. He completed his law degree at the Catholic University of Colombia and soon after joined Minister Rodrigo Lara’s team in President Belisario Betancur’s government.
Lara Bonilla was murdered by assassins of Pablo Escobar, the drug dealer who terrorized Colombia in the 1980s. Because Carvajal had worked with the anti-drug group and the Drug Enforcement Agency, he decided to live in Laredo, Texas for a prudent time. It was 1986. There he studied English and took courses in forensics and law. He got to know the American prison system well.
At the age of three he couldn’t take the nostalgia anymore and returned to Colombia. He was a law professor but quickly became disillusioned: “I didn’t like it, they didn’t pay well.” They appointed him delegated prosecutor in court, where he lasted only three months: “Orders were given to resolve cases and I have always believed that prosecutors should be autonomous in their decisions, they cannot be influenced. That has brought many problems to this country.”
Then he opened his own office in the center of Bogotá, a two-by-two booth, where he mainly received friends who were going through a divorce. Cashing fake checks, solving minor problems: not the career path he had envisioned. However, in 1990 he ran for the New Liberalism party as a city councilor for a municipality called Guacarí (Valle del Cauca), the place with the largest tree in Colombia, a saman, which appears on the 500 peso coin. He was elected, and it was there that he found his true calling. He met one of the country’s most powerful politicians, Dilian Francisca Toro, and began to develop relationships with politicians who needed a good lawyer to defend them in electoral processes. They were lawmakers and governors they wanted to oust from office with lawsuits.
Carvajal found his place in this land of perpetual trials until one of his clients became president. He no longer goes barefoot.
Héctor Alfonso Carvajal gestures during the interview.VANNESSA JIMENEZ
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